Current demand for data on wireless networks is growing significantly. Wireless network service providers are struggling to address this demand by expanding their radio coverage and efficiency. The lesser known struggle of operators is the capacity build out that needs to happen at the network core through which all the radio access gear connect.
Radio access technology advancements make spectrum usage increasingly efficient, i.e., increased number of bearer channels for a given bandwidth of radio spectrum. This allows wireless network operators to scale their network with a fine degree of granularity to pinpoint and address data demands. Technology improvements at the network core however do not allow the same degree granular scalability, i.e., the capacity increases at the core are possible in much larger steps than that possible in the radio access network. This leaves the wireless network operators with financially inefficient capital expenditure (CAPEX) investments on the network core infrastructure. To compound this issue, core network equipment technology advancements continue on proprietary paths without leveraging from the huge advancements made in data center technologies. This burdens wireless network operators with operating expenditures (OPEXs) that are too heavy to allow flexible scaling out of the network core tailored to demands per market segments (traffic types).
Approaches thus far have focused at increasing the performance of each of the equipment in the network core infrastructure. Most of this has been to performance tune the data plane stack of this equipment. While this gives better performing hardware units at near same costs, it does nothing to address the CAPEX/OPEX troubles faced by Wireless Network Operators in scaling out their networks.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.